DAD NEWS ON TOP SAD NEWS ANNOUNCE...

A few hundred feet away in the Long Island Rail Road concourse, two Guard members stood before a storefront. One carried an M4. “We’re with Empire Shield, but we’re supporting the bag checking,” said the Guard member with the rifle. Joint Task Force Empire Shield is a long-running task force that regularly

deploys National Guard members to transit hubs. The Guard member acknowledged that the long-guns had been banished from the bag-check areas. “That’s why we’re standing far way from them,” he said. Whether they carried rifles or not, the Guard soldiers’ presence in the subway system concerned some.

“No matter what weapons they’re carrying, a Guardsman is still a Guardsman,” said Albert Fox Cahn, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “It’s incredibly irresponsible and a chilling symbol,” said Cahn, adding that he worried about “the normalization of militarized tactics” in the transit system. Donna Lieberman, head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, agreed. “Treating our public transit

system like a war zone is an unnecessary overreaction based on fear, not facts,” she said in a statement. “Deploying military personnel to the subways will not make New Yorkers feel safe,” she said “It will, unfortunately, create a perfect storm for tension, escalation and further criminalization of Black and Brown New Yorkers.” The M4 carbine is standard issue for many members of the U.S. military, and the weapons are fielded by most police tactical units, including the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit and the New York State Police. The weapons aren’t wholly foreign to the city’s transit system. Well-armed Guard troops are routinely deployed with M4s to the main concourses at Grand Central Terminal, the Oculus at World Trade Center, and other locations as part of the Empire Shield joint task force that began after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and is charged with deterring national security threats. A New York Guard

spokesman told The News that the troops deployed at subway station bag-checks were bound by similar use-of-force rules to the Empire Shield task force – deadly force is authorized in cases of self-defense or defense of another person. Guard members are not law enforcement officers. If they see a crime while deployed in the subway, they cannot make an arrest, the spokesman said – though the law does allow them to detain a suspect until law enforcement arrives. The Guard members – as well as State and MTA Police officers – are playing second fiddle to the NYPD, which remains in charge of subway security, transit officials said. NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell posted posted on social media, “Our transit system is not a ‘war’ zone!” and noted that subway bag checks have been a regular part of NYPD operations for more than 15 years.